Smartest Guy at the Bar: UFC 152 Edition

If there was one winner in the whole UFC 151 debacle it was the
good people of Toronto. The
Ultimate Fighting Championship will fly into Canada on Saturday
swirling with controversy and a shiny new main event, as former
champion Vitor
Belfort will challenge Jon Jones for
his UFC light heavyweight crown. The fun, inaugural flyweight title
bout between Joseph
Benavidez and Demetrius Johnson dropped to the co-main event,
while a fantastic middleweight duel between Michael
Bisping and Brian Stann
rounds out the top three pay-per-view matchups.

How We Got Here: “Bones” was originally matched up
with Dan
Henderson, the man on the greatest late career surge this side
of Randy
Couture. That all changed with Henderson’s 42-year-old
medial-collateral ligament acted like a 42-year-old
medial-collateral ligament. A couple of turned down fights later,
the UFC settled on Jones-Belfort for the light heavyweight strap.
Jones opened as a 9-to-1 favorite over the Brazilian ... A four-man
flyweight tournament kicked off the long-awaited arrival of the
125-pounders in the UFC. Benavidez made easy work of Yasuhiro
Urushitani, while Johnson-Ian McCall did
not go quite as smoothly. Toronto received the first flyweight
championship fight in UFC history with the help of an Australian
commissioner who could not add. A scorecard error robbed the crowd
Down Under of a fourth round between Johnson and McCall at UFC on
FX 2, so the two were forced to settle it again three months later
in Florida. Johnson won, and, hopefully, closure is just days away
... Bisping and Stann are undefeated since 2010, with one glaring
exception: they both lost to Chael
Sonnen. Stann was manhandled and choked out by Sonnen -- it
remains the Oregonian’s only finish in the UFC and
WEC -- while Bisping put forth a valiant effort in a close,
controversial decision loss. The Bisping-Stann winner will be on
the short list of contenders at 185 pounds.

Useless Fact: This is the second time Belfort has
earned a title shot inside a weight class in which he was not
previously competing. He knocked out Rich
Franklin at 195 pounds to earn his shot against middleweight
king Anderson
Silva, and he submitted Anthony
Johnson in another catchweight appearance to earn his shot
against Jones. At least Urijah Faber
fights in the actual weight class before going for gold.

Bulls--- Storyline: Can we get over the Jones-Dana
White drama already? Minutes after announcing that he was forced to
cancel an event for the first time, the UFC president went on a
trademark tirade telling the world Jones and trainer Greg Jackson
killed UFC 151, cost the undercard fighters their purses and made
the dinosaurs die -- all because “Bones” would not accept a fight
against Sonnen on eight days’ notice. Later, he sent out an
official press release reaffirming his displeasure with the
champion and the Jackson’s
Mixed Martial Arts head. How did White punish Jones once the
dust settled and his temperature returned to 98.6 degrees? He gave
him a multi-million-dollar fight three weeks later against a man
many view as an easier matchup than Sonnen. No matter what inner
animosity these two proud men feel for each other, their business
relationship is not changing as long as people are willing to pay
to see Jones rearrange faces in unique and terrifying ways.

Demetrious Johnson/Sherdog.com

Will it be Johnson, or Benavidez?

Buried Narrative: This event will
be the answer to an MMA trivia question decades from now. At UFC
152, the UFC will crown a champion in its eighth -- and hopefully
last -- weight class, fitting into place the smallest piece of its
promotional puzzle. It is an underrated moment. Good luck, little
guys.

Say What:
Tristar Gym trainer Firas Zahabi has spent time with both Jones
and Belfort. During an interview on the SiriusXM Fight Club, he
described how Belfort could dethrone Jones. “He’s got an incredible
left hand,” Zahabi said. “Anybody he hits that left hand with is
going down. I’ve seen him in practice. I’ve trained with him. I’ve
held pads for him. I’ve coached him in sparring. He’s got a left
hand I’ve never seen before, and he can end anybody’s night. That
left hand is a blessing and it’s something very, very special.”

Chopping Block:Kyle Noke and
Walel
Watson are both coming off consecutive losses in the UFC and
need wins to guarantee paychecks with “Zuffa” written over the top
of them. Watson takes on submission machine Mitch
Gagnon, while Noke deals with wrestler Charlie
Brenneman. If your thing is watching fighters fend off
grapplers with their jobs on the line, do not miss the prelims.

Coming Home: “The Ultimate Fighter” alums Matt Hamill
and Vinny
Magalhaes return to the Octagon after extended layoffs.
Magalhaes finds his way back after getting cut for two consecutive
losses, while Hamill ends his brief retirement. Magalhaes has not
heard Bruce Buffer call his name in nearly three years, but he kept
busy, racking up a 7-1 record and winning a championship inside
M-1
Global. Hamill simply missed the opportunity to fight and the
ensuing paychecks that follow. Both are known names to fight fans,
and, with fighters dropping like flies to injuries, expect more UFC
veterans to re-enter the fold.

Awards Watch:Cub Swanson
and Charles “do
Bronx” Oliveira are on alert for “Fight of the Night,” as many
expect them to go nuts in the opening bout on pay-per-view. Both
men consistently score fight night bonuses. Jim Hettes
has to be the favorite for “Submission of the Night.” His one-sided
thrashing of Nam Phan was no
fluke, but it marked the first time in Hettes’ career that he did
not deliver a submission. Do not expect Marcus
Brimage to be as savvy as Phan. Jones is not a
one-punch-knockout kind of a guy. He prefers to stretch out his
beatings over the course of a few rounds. However, with an
undersized, overmatched foe like Belfort, Jones will pull something
fun out of his bag of tricks for “Knockout of the Night.”